Sommaire pour January - February 2016 de Cycle World

There’s little doubt that the sales success of the Yamaha FZ-09 sport naked has prompted Kawasaki USA to go after a chunk of a growing segment with its own strategically priced middleweight streetfighter. The new-for-the-US 2016 Kawasaki Z800 is a ready-made player, having become Kawasaki’s number-one-selling street model in Europe since its 2013 debut abroad. It all makes perfect sense, as the $8,399 Z800 fills a price and displacement void that has existed between the Ninja 650 and Z1000 in Kawasaki’s Stateside lineup—well, make that 49 states for this year while Kawasaki works through the process of California emissions certification. It’s tough luck for Golden State residents, but the rest of the country can enjoy this fun and affordable addition to the growing middleweight naked segment right now with units…

Some sportbikes get all the love. Poke around any bike night or grudge match at the local strip and you’ll find enough tricked-out supersports, liter-class superbikes, ’Busas, and Ninja ZX-14s to keep a thriving performance aftermarket from looking too far outside the bleach box for hop-up candidates. Not so for Dale Walker, a four-time dragracing national champion with Top Fuel and Pro Street titles to his credit. Walker’s Holeshot Performance (holeshot.com) parts business primarily caters to owners of performance standards and streetfighters, plus the occasional adventure bike. Walker has also carved an unlikely niche with an unmatched hop-up parts line dedicated to the Suzuki Bandit 1200 and 1250. Get Walker talking about his beloved 2007 Bandit 1250—affectionately named Igor, “As in Dr. Frankenstein’s helper”—and you had better have a good…

ROOKIE ROMAIN FEBVRE J GLEN HELEN RACEWAY J CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY THE VIEW FROM INSIDE THE PADDOCK Racing can be sooo predictable. Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart have perfect seasons. Antonio Cairoli earns six consecutive world championships. Jeffrey Herlings wins 18 GPs in a row. And then, all of a sudden, it’s not. And seldom has racing been less predictable than during the 2015 MXGP World Championship. Unless you’ve been living under a rock—or you’re a roadracing elitist—you know that four-time AMA Super cross Champion Ryan Villopoto decided to spend the final year of his career on a “European vacation.” His participation attracted unprecedented interest in the MXGPs, as it promised to once and for all answer the age-old question of who really is better: us or them? And more…

Since its introduction five years ago, the fourth-generation Kawasaki ZX-10R earned two World Superbike titles, 40 race wins, and 33 pole positions. Tom Sykes is credited with the lion’s share of those achievements, but it was the arrival of Dutch crew chief Marcel Duinker at the end of 2011 that marked the beginning of a three-year run in which the bearded Brit finished either first or second overall in the champion ship points. When Kawasaki pulled out of MotoGP at the end of 2009, Duinker was one of two engineers who made the move to World Superbike. With Duinker’s help, Sykes won the championship in 2013 and narrowly missed a second successive title in 2014. This past season, Kawasaki’s dynamic duo of Sykes and Duinker faced a new challenge—primarily technical—which…

Riding gear offering contemporary technology in materials, construction, and crash protection doesn’t need to look like something RoboCop would wear. Some of the coolest-looking gear today melds classic vintage style and comfort with modern safety features. We’ve assembled five sets of kits spanning a broad price range that wear well and look great on or off the bike. SPIRIT OF 79 Quality and craftsmanship in these items from Swiss apparel producer iXS had us hard-pressed to find a stitch out of place. The soft and supple bovine nappa leather Elliott jacket celebrates the brand’s late ’70s origin, has a polyester mesh lining, zip-out thermo vest liner, shoulder and elbow armor, with plenty of pockets inside and out. “Super duty” best describes the stone-washed Cassidy II jeans, featuring aramid fabric in…

NORTON COMMANDO vs.BMW R90S A few weeks ago, with summer truly here and the locust trees in full bloom, I flipped open my ancient cell phone and gave Editor Mark Hoyer a call at the CW office in California. “What I have sitting in my workshop at this moment,” I said, pausing for dramatic effect, “are two rival superbikes from the mid-’70s—a 1974 Norton Commando and a 1976 BMW R90S—and they’re both in pretty nice shape. One is quite British and the other is very German. I think it would be neat if you could fly out here to Wisconsin for a little classic comparison test/tour and take some photos before I drop one of them in the driveway and ruin everything. Or the Norton wears out.” “Where were you…

READER INFORMATION Editorial/Production: Offices are located at 15215 Alton Pkwy., Ste. 100, Irvine, CA 92618; (760) 707-0100. Editorial contributions are welcomed but must be guaranteed exclusive to Cycle World. We are not responsible for the return of unsolicited material unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Letters: All letters cannot be answered, and neither can all Service inquiries be answered. We appreciate correspondence sent or emailed to the editorial offices and will use the most interesting and appropriate letters in the magazine. Slipstream: We’re looking for stunning photos that capture the essence of our sport and remind us why we love motorcycling so much. Send your best shot to intake@cycleworld.com, being sure to include the word “Slipstream” in the subject line. Subscription/customer service: One year: US & Possessions = $15,…

R IS FOR RACING Z8 NAKED NEW ZX-10R GURNEY̕S ENGINE COOLEST GEAR BY THE NUMBERS 58 MILLIMETERS: Diameter of the Monster 1200R’s massive header pipes, in millimeters. That’s 2.3 inches! 160 HP: Claimed horsepower of the Monster 1200R V-twin, which has bumped compression and larger (56mm) throttle bodies. The letter R has a glorious history with Ducati. Denoting “Racing,” it has stood atop a pedestal high above the base and S (for “Sport”) models in the superbike, sport-touring, and even naked families. R models traditionally come with a raft of upgrades and a higher price. In the past, those upgrades have been radical—recall the 996R, which was the first to employ the Testastretta engine—but they’ve also been as subtle as higher-spec suspension and a smattering of carbon fiber. The 2016…

From time to time, we’ve reported on the unique Alligator series of feet-first motorcycles designed and built by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers organization in Santa Ana, California. Early examples were powered by modified production engines, but inevitably, because of Gurney’s grand past of auto racing and a life spent at the center of highperformance design, he wanted to do an engine of his own. The work began with S&Sbased V-twins with high-tech AAR heads, but we all know that narrow-angle V-twins shake, and we know they are not particularly compact. He and his merrymen have therefore designed a compact big-inch (110 cubes) twin that not only cancels its own primary vibration but is designed from the start with every proven element of high-performance design. Where did vibration go? The…

Like Las Vegas and lost wages or Harvey Wallbangers and hangovers, bikes and broken bones unfor tunately sometimes go together. Unappealing, true, but there’s good news. “Bones are among the only tissues in the body that heal without scarring, returning to normal after a fracture,” says Dr. Chris Proctor, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon based in Santa Barbara, California. “Your bones are constantly breaking down and rebuilding, so the bone structure you had 10 years ago is not the structure you have today.” We asked Dr. Proctor if humans are innately deficient in bone structure. “No,” he says. “If a bear could ride a bike and collide with a truck, he’d break his leg too. So we aren’t flawed physically; instead our flaw is in the brain. An ancient hunter-gatherer would…

KTM is on a roll and has been for some time. In the past decade it has gone from a company whose only street offerings were relatively simple singles to one producing world-class V-twins bristling with the latest technology. It seems like eons since 1991, when CEO Stefan Pierer (see interview, page 36) intervened to rescue the Austrian dirt bike manufacturer from bankruptcy. It’s hard to fathom for Americans who think of KTM as the brand that Ryan Dungey races, but thanks to its partnership with Bajaj in India plus factories in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Malaysia, KTM sells more streetbikes than dirt bikes nowadays. For 2016, there’s a new street model called the Super Duke GT. Based on the award-winning 1290 Super Duke R— a.k.a. “The Beast”—the GT is…

TRIUMPH’S SPEED TRIPLE is perhaps the brand’s biggest image builder, the machine that most brought the modern Triumph back to enthusiasts’ attention. Arguably the first streetfighter when it was introduced in 1992, it went on to become the rockingest, meanest one that money could buy later in that decade and in the first years of the 21st century. Those days, however, are over. In a world where KTM 1290 Super Dukes and BMW S1000Rs thunder and howl, the 1,050cc Speed Triple had given up its claim to quickest and baddest rights some time ago, which makes the very thorough overhaul of the Speed Triple for 2016 very interesting: Rather than go for a complete redesign that would enter the Speed back into the streetfighter power wars, Triumph did something more…